5 Painted Kitchen Cabinets to Inspire Your Next Renovation

Jan 14, 2024

If you’ve ever considered changing up the look and color scheme of your kitchen, but don't have the time or budget for a serious overhaul, a relatively easy way to do it can simply come down to a couple gallons of paint. Over the years we’ve featured so many stunning painted kitchen cabinets from compact city apartments to modest suburban homes that feature every color imaginable—and sometimes a few all at once. No matter which Color of the Year or a generation's chosen color is trending, it's amazing to see just how transformative a paint job can be. Even better, you’ll know the ends and outs of the process, so if you change your mind in a few years you can paint your kitchen cabinets all over again. Here we’ve rounded up some particularly inspiring painted kitchen cabinets to inspire a refresh of your own.

Untouched for years, the 1950s California ranch house whose kitchen Faith Blakeney had been hired to renovate was beautiful—with good bones—but it looked staged. Materials were chosen to complement the home's innate charms and to honor its owners’ commitment to top-quality craftsmanship and sustainability (the central butcher block, for instance, is made of earth-friendly bamboo). Meanwhile, painted kitchen cabinets and patterned tile in vivid emerald green carried a sense of play from the kitchen to the adjoining powder room, adding intrigue to oft neglected nooks and crannies.

When Meredith Winfrey decided to put down roots in the city, she and her husband purchased the bare-bones second floor of a once industrial condo building in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with the goal of transforming it into a cozy family home. Meredith went to work adding playful colors and patterns, but also a fair share of neutrals in various accents and with the white painted floors. A playful orange-and-navy motif is complemented by a series of Dutch blue doors that lead to two bedrooms and a clever closet that hides the water heater, coats, shoes, and more. The strong shade of blue carries into the kitchen, which is helmed by a custom-crafted pantry and cabinets adorned with minimal brass hardware from DeVol.

Katherine Thewlis didn't let being a renter stop her from tackling the kitchen in her 1,200-square-foot Johnson City, Tennessee, home last fall. The e-designer and blogger was more than ready to say goodbye to many features within the space, which included what she called an Easter egg yellow hue, wood paneling, and linoleum floors. However, given that she wouldn't be able to take on a major renovation, Katherine had to get creative. She needed to keep the kitchen's original flat panel cabinets intact for storage purposes but did give them a major facelift. "I sanded and repainted them myself to match the wall paint color," she says. "I wanted it to have a built-in look. I purchased some two-inch wood balls as the cabinet knobs, which I painted to match the doors."

The monochromatic look was something Katherine was really drawn to in the overhaul. "I love the way in which these rooms can support a bold color choice without feeling overwhelming," she adds.

Sometimes it's love at first sight with real estate, and that was very much the case for blogger and author Melissa Coleman of the Faux Martha. When her husband spotted the 1970s Minnesota A-frame online, they made a beeline for the property with their five-year-old in tow. They put in an offer on the way home and, Melissa satisfyingly acknowledges, "the rest is history." Cut to a plumbing issue, which found Melissa and her husband opting to slightly bump out the kitchen to accommodate more people, add counter seating, and bring the material and colors up to date while still paying homage to the kitchen's original quaint roots. The color palette was inspired by nature or, alternately, as Melissa half-jokingly notes, "that inspiration could also be attributed to the neon green shag carpet that once lined the first floor." Though the color of the painted kitchen cabinets became a bit of a saga, it was well worth it.

Between chronic dampness and a cramped, segmented floor plan, the ground level of a young family's Victorian town house was incredibly dreary. To vanquish the gloom, architecture studio Office S&M gave the kitchen and dining area a bright rainbow rehaul that's in stark contrast to its dingy former state. Joyful colors, geometric shapes, and rounded edges also juxtapose with London's perpetually cloudy skies, offering the homeowners a much-needed getaway from the gray weather. Much of the vibrant color comes directly from the paint, which includes: Dulux Wellbeing on the walls, First Dawn on the pantry, Sorbet on the seating unit exterior, and Teal Touch on the seating unit interior and cabinetry. Those painted kitchen cabinets burst with life!

"We selected different shades of colors to give a false sense of shadows, which adds more depth and three-dimensionality because it is otherwise a box," details founding partner Catrina Stewart.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest